Bel isn’t surprised when her mother slams the door: she’s always dramatic; she loves to make a scene. It’s one of those heady summer evenings, an oily haze rising off the asphalt, little puddles of tar melting at the edges, the sweetness of the compost pile snaking in through her window. It’s Bel’s job to turn it, but she rarely does. Full of sticky rotten fruit, clots of midges and blowflies, slimy grass that congeals in froggish clumps. It makes her want to puke. 

Sprawled on her bed, Bel examines the cracks in her ceiling. It’s asbestos, she’s sure. The textured coating glitters when she turns on the light. Before she knew about mesothelioma, she’d throw tennis balls at the ceiling, raining showers of dust and leaving smooth smudges. 

She worries about the asbestos, like she worries about catching legionnaires’ disease from the compost. Her mother dismisses her fears––silly phobias, she calls them. She says it’s narcissistic for Bel to be so concerned with her own mortality. She often points out that life is Not, in fact, Worth Worrying About. 

That isn’t what their fight was about––though they argue over Bel’s phobias a lot. Most recently, her mother caught Bel cleaning mould from the windows with a toothbrush. The windows cry––that’s the technical term; Bel looked it up––each winter morning, condensation streaming down and pooling on the sills. It’s summer though, so the windows weren’t weeping, but the joinery was still rimmed with a greenish-black fuzz that Bel felt compelled to scrub away. 

With pink dish gloves that came to her elbows and a face mask fashioned out of a bandana and swimming goggles, she crouched, pushing an old toothbrush into the corner, bleach caustic in her nostrils, while the brush head mottled green-black and left a trail of soil along the glass. 

What’s that get up, her mother asked when she entered. Bel told her she didn’t want to breathe in mould spores, and her mother called her ridiculous. Bel tried to explain how black mould killed Brittany Murphy, but her mother called Bel a sissy and held her hand out for the gloves. 

Sissy, Baby, Idiot. Her mother had many names for what she saw as Bel’s weakness. Her soft-jellied insideness. Bel couldn’t help it. She’d seen an E! True Hollywood Story on Brittany Murphy. They’d interviewed her family, panning around the innocuous-looking mansion, where black mould had spread, like a secret virus, through the walls. 

Bel peeled the gloves off and passed them to her mother, along with her goggles and bandana. She washed her hands three times and took a long bath. She added bleach to the water, to be sure. 

* 

Bel doesn’t remember when the fear began. It was gradual, the accretion. Each worry a layer of varnish thickening against the soft parts of her. A coating that grew opaque with time. Hardened like armour. 

The farthest back she can remember––the first time a named worry laddered her spine––was when her grandfather died of emphysema. She was seven. Her mother spoke of it in hushed tones. Bel didn’t know what it was. Problem with his lungs, her mother said by way of explanation, shooing her away. 

Bel made a paper flower from folded patty cases, twisting the spirals together and taping them closed at the base, like a tightly frilled carnation. She laid it on her grandfather’s coffin at the funeral. 

Later, while the grown-ups drank and smoked in the lounge, she snuck into her mother’s room and pulled an old Encyclopaedia Britannica from the shelf. Number IV: Delusion to Fressen. The pages were tissue-thin and edged with gold. Emphysema, the brief paragraph told her, was a lung disease, caused by exposure to airborne irritants, primarily smoking. 

After that, she held her breath around her mother and her friends, trying not to inhale the greyish haze. She warned her mother, pointing out the bold lettering: SMOKING KILLS. You’ve got to die of something, her mother would say. 

Bel’s fears grew, rather than lessened, as she got older. She worried about her mother’s lax approach to hygiene. There was an article in the Woman’s Weekly about food safety, explaining cross-contamination with cartoonish pictures of purple and green bacteria and a photograph of slimy chicken leaking pinkish fluid onto a chopping board while bright starbursts explained the risks of salmonella, campylobacter, E. coli. 

Her mother didn’t wash the dishes in hot enough water. Or use enough soap. The lukewarm dishcloth only spread bacteria around. She could almost see them, luminescent and multiplying, a radioactive glow across the bench. 

Bel laid baking paper on the board before she used it, lined her plates with paper towels. Got her mother to buy food in individually wrapped packets. She still believed factories were clean places, then. 

 *

She’d been at a party before arguing with her mother. She’d spent all afternoon getting ready. Patrick would be there, and she wanted to look good. He wasn’t like the other boorish guys at school. Gay, her mother said, when Bel mentioned him. All the best ones are, she pouted. 

But he wasn’t gay, just different. His hands were soft. Bel knew this because a few months earlier, when she tripped outside the maths block and he helped her up, the pads of his fingers were smooth on her skin. Cool too, like napped leather. 

Perhaps that’s when it began, her conviction he’d save her. She hadn’t noticed him before. He blended in––tallish, skinnyish, blondish, sitting in the alcove behind the library with the gamers, not speaking much in class. 

After he helped her up, they talked. Bel can’t remember what he said, only warmth spreading in an opposite direction to her fear. A pool in her stomach that radiated up and out and spread across her back like sun-warmed blood. 

She noticed him around school after that. He had a black and white checked backpack that stood out in the corridors. She stared at his hands, oddly large for his wrists. The few times she talked to him––borrowing a pencil, asking the time––she drowned in warmth. 

She dressed carefully for the party. She was straightening her frizzy hair when her mother came crashing in, smelling of smoke and drink. Lately, Bel had detected the grassiness of weed on her breath. 

Bella-Bella, Bel-doll, her mother said in a sing-song voice. 

A sure sign she’d been drinking. Bel clenched. Uh-huh? she said. 

What are you doing, baby? her mother asked, leaning sloppy on the door frame.

Going out, Bel said. 

Can I come? her mother replied. She tried to drum her fingers, but they slipped off, lopsided. 

Bel winced. 

Ha, don’t want Mummy cramping your style?

You wouldn’t like it, Bel said. Bunch of kids.

I love kids, her mother said, flopping on the bed. She rolled onto her stomach and propped herself on her elbows like she was at a sleepover. So, Bella, who’s the fella? she asked, simpering. 

Bel shook her head. 

Don’t be such a square, her mother said. You’ve got protection, right?

Bel rolled her eyes. It’s not like that, she said. 

It’s always like that, baby, her mother replied. You think I meant to get knocked up? 

Her mother pulled herself up to sit cross-legged, dragging her shoes across the covers as she did. 

Take your shoes off, Bel said. 

Oh, chill out, her mother replied. They’re mostly clean. 

They. Are. Not, Bel said, trying to contain herself. 

You and your bloody germs. Bet this boy of yours has plenty of germs. Bet his filthy little fingers are covered in them. Caked right under his nails. Better not let him stick them–– 

Shut up, Bel shouted, all control disappearing. 

Her mother grinned. Hit a nerve there, did I? she said. Does that mean you want his dirty little fingers? 

She pulled off her boots then, one by one, and threw them at the wall. They fell with a thud-thud. 

It’ll be good for you to get grime on your skin, she continued. It’s not healthy, this obsession with cleanliness. 

Bel shook her head and fought the urge to wash her hands right there. She longed for the acid sharp slick of hand sanitiser spread on her skin. She’d have to change the linen, no question, but she’d wait until her mother left. Most of her cleaning was done surreptitiously these days. 

The problem was, her mother was right, in her own crude way. Being with Patrick would involve so many layers of touch. Traces of his body left on hers. She wasn’t sure if she could stand it. Her mother was in the kitchen, pouring herself a vodka tonic, the ice cubes clinking when Bel left. She wolf-whistled, smirking at Bel. 

To being dirty, she said, lifting her glass. 

* 

When Bel returned, forty minutes later, her mother raised an eyebrow but let her past. It wasn’t long, though, before she was skulking in the doorway with her glass, the antiseptic smell of alcohol wafting around her. 

What happened? her mother asked. Party not clean enough for you? 

Don’t want to talk about it, Bel said. 

She pulled her knees up to her chin. She liked the way it compressed her stomach, made her small. 

Ah, well, her mother replied. Life’s dirty, girl; sooner you get used to it the better. 

I said I didn’t want to talk, Bel repeated. 

Her mother stepped into the room, the smirk slipping from her face. What happened? she asked. Did he hurt you? 

Nothing happened, okay? Bel replied. Nothing.

Her mother slumped. Well, she said. Next time. 

There’s no fucking next time, Bel yelled. 

Bel-bel, her mother said, looking hurt. Ain’t my fault life’s dirty. Just is. Life’s hard. 

Fuck off would you, Bel shouted. I don’t need advice from a drunk. 

There was a moment when her mother seemed split––like a seed casing, a soft shoot bursting through. Bel waited, but her mother turned and left, slamming the door behind her. 

Bel rolled over, put the pillow over her head. It was quiet for a few moments before her mother’s footsteps receded. 

* 

When Bel had arrived at the party, kids were mingling on the veranda. The dull thump of bass leaked from the windows, along with the thick smell of stale body spray and warm beer. 

Bel walked up the steps and looked for someone she knew. A jostling girl elbowed past, splashing her with beer and slurring an apology, wiping Bel with dirty fingers. Bel walked through the shadowy house, looking for a bathroom. The damp air clogged her lungs. Every breath inhaled a host of microbes. Bel wanted to lift the neck of her shirt over her nose, but it was too tight. 

She found the bathroom, turning the sticky brass knob with disgust. She had to push aside a dropped towel with her toe to approach the sink where she dabbed unsuccessfully at the wet patch on her jeans. The thudding music made it hard to think. It was still light, but the bathroom, with its tiny mould-spiderred window, was dim. 

The door opened and Bel turned, shaking her still-wet hands over the sink––no chance she’d use the grimy towel that lay in a stiff grey ball on the vanity. In the doorway, Patrick was haloed by the slanting evening light. For a moment, he looked like Jesus. 

Sorry, didn’t know it was occupied, he said. 

Warmth twisted around Bel’s abdomen. No, I’m just washing my hands, she said, gesturing at the toothpaste spattered sink. 

Right, well… he said and stood by the bath, the limp shower curtain plastered to the tub behind him like a frieze. A gust slammed the door shut. 

So, you been here long? she said. 

Long enough to need the bathroom, Patrick said.

Right, of course. Sorry, Bel said. 

Embarrassed, she stepped towards the door, then stopped—her hands were still wet–– usually she’d open a door with her elbow or her little finger, but that only worked with flat handles. With a knob she’d have to wad up toilet paper to protect her hand then do a balletic manoeuvre, propping the door with her foot and lobbing the used paper into the toilet. She couldn’t do that with Patrick watching. 

Bel? he said. 

She pressed her lips together and counted silently to ten. Nothing happened. The implacable door faced her, its brass knob slick with other people’s handprints. 

Bel, not to be rude, but I need to go, he said. 

She nodded but didn’t move. Her skin turned hot. Her stomach reached for her heart, insistent in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. 

Bel, I––he started, but the handle twisted, and a beer-logged face leaned into the room, interrupting. 

Sorry brah, the boy said, leering when he spotted Bel, feet planted on the dinghy lino, and Patrick with a hand on his zipper. 

Bel used the moment to shoulder past the boy, not even caring that she brushed his puckered skin. She ran outside, onto the street, kept running. The flare in her lungs, the rat-a- tat-tat of her heart, the sharp jolt of her feet hitting the pavement, felt good, felt clean. She didn’t stop until she couldn’t hear the music anymore. 

* 

Still on the bed, Bel opens her eyes. The light has dropped, gone bluish, and the air has a bite; the smell of compost has receded. The party will be getting going now. She wants to go back, but her mother is right. Life’s dirty. Life’s hard. She shakes herself off, stands and opens her door a crack. The house is silent. She tiptoes down the hall. Her mother isn’t there; she must have gone out. She regrets yelling at her. She didn’t mean it, not really. 

The vodka bottle sits on the table. Ordinarily, Bel wouldn’t touch it. So unhygienic, the way her mother swigs straight from it. But today isn’t ordinary. Bel finds a clean glass in the kitchen and pours out two fingers then opens her throat and gulps. The warmth that spreads from her stomach, up her oesophagus, isn’t all that different from the warmth she gets when she’s with Patrick. Maybe her mother is smarter than Bel thinks. 

Bel grabs her coat, slips a bottle of hand sanitiser into her pocket and returns to the party. It’s dark by the time she arrives. The music is louder, bleating. The rooms are foetid with warmth and breath. Patrick isn’t there. She traipses into the garden where people are sitting in a circle on the grass. Amongst them, she makes out the shine of his hair. She can do this. She can. Bel sprays her hands with sanitiser. They’re shaking. 

Bel, Patrick calls as she approaches. I thought you’d left. 

She shrugs, not trusting her tongue. 

Sit; we’re playing spin the bottle, Patrick says. 

A shudder up her spine––thrill and fear. She can’t, can she? 

Hang on, she says. I need a drink. 

He smiles at her, a constellation of teeth, incisors sharp and rabbit-like. 

Inside, she fumbles for a clean cup. She takes one from the middle of a stack of disposable plastic cups on the bench, eyeing the assortment of open bottles scattered around the kitchen. Too compromised. When she finds an unopened bottle of beer, Bel abandons the cup and twists the cap. The beer is frothy and warm. It slips down her throat, yeasty and ripe. 

Outside, a girl on her knees leans towards a boy from Bel’s biology class. They are kissing, and the circle claps and jeers. The girl rocks back onto her heels, wipes her mouth and grins. Patrick beckons Bel over, scooting along to make space. She swigs the beer and sits. Warmth radiates off him. She longs to lean into it. 

Gritting her teeth against the tremble that rises when it’s her turn, Bel thinks of her mother––the fog of smoke, the quick-sliver drinks, her beat-up life—and takes another swig of beer. On her knees in the grass, she pats around for a smooth piece of ground, grips the bottle, closes her eyes. Spins. 

* 

Her mother wasn’t always a drunk. It crept up on them both. A long-short descent after Bel’s grandfather died. He was the only family they had. Bel’s father is a mystery. Her mother was so hostile at any mention of him, Bel gave up asking. As she got older, she worried the reason he was so secret was he’d done something terrible—something violent or abusive. Perhaps that was why Bel was so broken. Maybe he’d left some tarnish behind. 

Bel remembers when her mother was like the other mothers. She remembers a birthday cake in the shape of a cat with a rope of liquorice for a tail, her mother coaching the netball team, a silver whistle around her neck, teaching them to plant their feet shouting Ice Cream as each foot hit the ground, sewing crooked and misshapen little clothes for Bel’s dolls, the whirr of the machine sending Bel off to sleep. 

These things peeled away. Her mother, never a sociable person, spent more time alone. She quit the PTA and stopped inviting Bel’s friends over to play, no longer gossiping with the mothers over tea while she peeled potatoes for dinner. Maybe that’s when Bel’s fear started. Not when her grandfather died, but when her mother began slipping away. 

The change in them pulled out like Plasticine until somehow, without noticing, a gloved Bel disinfected windows while her mother lay passed out, a bottle of vodka wedged between her and the sofa. 

Bel opens her eyes. The bottle stops spinning, facing a bland boy whose name she doesn’t remember, and everyone around her chants, kiss, kiss, kiss. 

She takes a drink of beer. It froths in her stomach. She ignores the sharp knives that press at her skin, the vice around her neck and crawls across the circle on her hands and knees, adrenaline racing. The mud claws at her insides, but she keeps going, leaning forward, mouth firmly closed, and presses her closed lips to his. They are as cold and soft as a slug. 

Everyone claps and cheers. A rush of energy spikes through her body. She leans back, shaking, and lowers herself into a cross-legged seat, turning away to hide the hand sanitiser she pulls from her pocket. She smears a thin film across her lips. It stings, but that doesn’t matter. It almost feels good. 

There’s a hand on her knee. She turns back. Patrick is smiling at her and at the bottle pointed between her legs. Her whole body gets hot. 

Guess it’s us, he says.

She nods and swallows. She hasn’t recovered from bland-boy while Patrick, with his warm, salty smile, leans towards her. This time she can’t press closed lips to his face. This time it’s for real. 

She takes a deep breath. 

*

It tipped into pathological the summer she turned thirteen. She’d been different for a while. The signs were there––she laid tea towels on chairs before sitting; pyjamas were the only clothes allowed not only in but on her bed; her mother wasn’t to sit on it unless she’d showered. Great wads of the paper towels and antibacterial wipes she used to clean clumped up her bin. 

Her mother wrote her off as idiosyncratic at first. A phase, she said. But after Bel turned thirteen and got her period, everything changed. It was the blood—her blood—bright and metallic, leaking from between her legs. None of the so-called sanitary products seemed sanitary at all. Nothing made it stop. That’s when her hand washing increased, scrubbing with harsh soaps until her skin cracked and peeled from her fingertips. She carried bottles of sanitiser everywhere––stinging her broken skin. The pain, alongside the scent, sweet and astringent, calmed her. 

Her mother commented but other than dismissing more phobias in Bel, did nothing. When Bel broke her finger playing netball, the A&E doctor took one look at her ragged hands and pulled her mother aside. 

After that, her mother shipped her off to the GP, who sent her to a psychologist. It helped, for a while, until it didn’t. They could only afford a few sessions. When it ended, Bel went back to washing her hands until they bled, and her mother drank a little more. 

* 

She leans towards Patrick, closes her eyes. This is it; it’s happening; it’s happening. His hand is on her knee, and warmth travels up her thigh, but also fear. Patrick’s lips brush hers; her body tingles. For one exquisite moment, she is balanced between desire and fear. Then his tongue, sharp and wet, pushes between her lips. It’s much firmer than she expects; the muscle of it pokes around her mouth as though searching for something. She shudders and pushes him off, stung by his pointy little tongue. He slips it into his mouth like a frog and sits back. 

The circle focuses on the next pair. Patrick’s hand is not on her leg any longer, and she isn’t warm. She’s cold now, bone-snapped-twig-burnt cold. 

* 

In the dingy bathroom, perched on the side of the tub, she stares at her hands, red and damp from relentless washing. Her eyes blur with tears. A cut on her cuticle throbs. 

The door opens––Patrick again. The warmth she’d wrapped up in him has slid away. She’s oily with revulsion. 

Bel, he says. 

For a moment, it seems he’s looking for her. She’s still broken, but perhaps she can be mended. Maybe she can salvage this torn-up night. Maybe frog tongues are tolerable, after all. Then he steps towards the toilet. 

Funny, you’re always here when I need to go, he says. 

Bel wipes her eyes with the clean back of her hand. He hasn’t noticed she’s crying. She leaves, saying nothing, not trusting her voice. Before the door is even closed, the stream of his piss rings out. 

She walks home again, fingers throbbing, the sourness of his tongue still in her mouth. She rinsed repeatedly; even so, she spits from time to time. 

Her mother is passed out on the sofa when she gets home. Bel drapes a blanket over her and picks up the empty bottle from the floor. 

In the bathroom, her clean bathroom––so clean, Bel bleached it yesterday––she gargles with mouthwash three times before brushing her teeth. She has a long shower until woozy with steam then makes herself tea. After she’s stripped the bed and remade it, with sheets washed at 60 degrees, she pulls the covers up and takes a sip of the scalding drink, imagining it burning off every cell Patrick left behind. 

After, she switches off the light and lies in the cocoon-quiet, the faint snuffle of her mother’s snoring drifting up the hall. 

* 

When Bel gets up the next morning, her mother is still on the sofa, under the blanket Bel draped over her. Bel makes as much noise as possible preparing coffee––slamming the cupboards, running the faucet hard, clinking the mug on the bench. Soon enough, her mother groans at her to be quiet. 

Bel sips her coffee and waits until her mother sidles up to the bench, then Bel pushes a mug towards her. Her mother rubs her eyes before taking a sip. 

Last night, her mother says then stops. 

Bel drinks her coffee. 

Last night, about Patrick, her mother continues. I didn’t mean it. I just wish you could be normal, she says. 

Bel chokes a little. You don’t think I’m normal? she asks. Though she knows the answer. 

You know what I mean, her mother says. I wish you could enjoy life more, not worry so much. 

Because not worrying works out so well for you? Bel says. 

Her mother rubs her temples. Grab me the painkillers, would you? 

Bel gets up, fishes around in the pantry and pops two pills into her mother’s waiting palm. 

No, it’s not working out for me. But I want you to have everything I didn’t, Bel. I want you to be happy. 

Her mother slugs back the pills with hot coffee. 

Bel stirs her drink, doesn’t meet her mother’s eyes. My brain. I can’t make it shut up, she says. 

Me either, her mother says. Even when I do—she presses her hands over her ears— next day it comes back even louder. 

All that’s left of Bel’s coffee is a swirl of undissolved grains at the bottom of her cup. Her mother finishes her own in a glug. 

Come with me, she says. I got an idea. 

Bel’s mother pulls her by the hand into the living room. Here, okay, her mother says, gesturing at the window. 

Bel peers out at the empty street. What? she asks. 

Lick this window, her mother says.

Ha ha, Bel replies. 

I’m not kidding, her mother says. I want you to lick this window. 

Bel drops her mother’s hand. You’re deranged, she says. 

Come on, exposure therapy, her mother says. Isn’t that what you learned? Her mother lifts her hands in excitement. 

I’m not doing it, Bel says. Don’t be ridiculous.

It’s okay, her mother says. I promise you will be okay. Look. 

She presses her palms to the glass, extends her neck and takes a long lick. Her tongue is meaty against the window; the swipe of saliva leaves a greasy trail. 

See? her mother says. I’m fine. Your turn. 

Bel crosses her arms.

I can’t, she says. It’s filthy.

It’s not, her mother replies. You just cleaned it. 

Bel sighs. Her mother won’t let up. She did disinfect the windows last week. She walks to the glass, sniffs. It smells of nothing, of air. 

Come on, Bel, her mother says. You can do it. It won’t kill you. That’s what you gotta learn. What’ll kill you is right here, she says, tapping her index finger to her temple. 

Bel hesitates. She remembers Patrick, his tongue, sharp and wet. How cold she was, sitting on the grass. That hollowness in the bathroom. Life’s dirty. Life’s hard. 

Bel inhales, steels herself. She pokes out her tongue, closes her eyes, presses the barest tip of it to the glass. Her mother whoops. The glass is cool and smooth and tastes of nothing at all. Bel closes her mouth, steps back. 

She presses her lips together. The tip of her tongue tingles. She’s hot all over. She’s aware of the pressure of her tongue on the roof of her mouth. A few metres away lies the bathroom, mouthwash, her toothbrush, but she doesn’t move. Her mother’s hand is on her shoulder. On the glass, a bloom like a thumbprint slowly fades away. 

2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist: Issue 3